The Best Salmon Bowl You’ll Ever Make | Sticky Miso Salmon | Andy Baraghani | NYT Cooking

I'm gonna commit to this, even though this is not a sharp knife. So no close-ups. Camera laughs. I'm Andy Varaghani, and we're at the New York Times Cooking Studio Kitchen, and today I'm gonna be making my sticky miso salmon bowl. I love this recipe, and it seems like so many of you like this recipe too, which makes me very, very happy. Miso and fish is a very delicious thing. Miso and citrus is a very delicious thing. And you often see miso paired with citrus, like lemon, sometimes orange, sometimes yuzu. But I wanted to pair it with grapefruit, because I think it has a much more kind of complex flavor, a little bit of sweetness, and also that bitterness that just makes it so interesting. So our base for this dish is gonna be short-grained rice. We are gonna give it a rinse a few times. I just kind of fill it up with water, agitate it with my hands, kind of remove that excess starch. That water will become cloudy. Drain it, fill it up with water. Do that two or three times. You could also just place the rice in a strainer, and also just kind of swish it around until the water underneath becomes clear. And this is just so that the rice isn't overly sticky, where it's obviously gonna be clumpy in the end, which is what we want, but we're just trying to remove that excess starch. Okay, we have a medium saucepan. We're gonna add our rice, and then we're gonna just level our rice out, and pour in two and a quarter cups of water. We are just kind of bringing it up to a simmer. So I think this marinade works wonderfully with salmon. A lot of people will be buying farmed salmon, which is definitely milder in flavor, sometimes a little bit fattier. Other salmons can be quite lean. Ones that are fattier are more forgiving if you cook that salmon longer underneath the broiler. So that depends on how you like your salmon cooked, and obviously what kind of salmon you're buying that's your fishmonger. So our rice is coming to a simmer. I'm gonna give it one little stir. I'm gonna adjust to low heat, and let that steam for 18 minutes. Next, we're gonna make the marinade. Super simple. First, we're gonna start out with the white miso. This is really the strongest component of the marinade. You want that flavor, but it also will add a kind of creaminess to this marinade. You can marinate the salmon for hours, a day ahead, but I developed it so that you really don't have to marinate, per se. It's just a concentrated paste. It'll feel like it's been marinated for hours or even days, but really, you can just cook it right away. We have some honey, a little bit of neutral oil, which is gonna help with that caramelization. We're gonna use a good amount of ginger. That's one tablespoon of ginger. You really want that flavor to come through. And I love grating it with a microplane. It kind of becomes kind of paste-like. And then, with our grapefruit, we're gonna add two teaspoons of grapefruit zest and one tablespoon of grapefruit juice. And now we whisk, and you're just looking for a roughly smooth paste. It should be quite thick. So, you already have the kind of saltiness from the miso, but you want to add a little bit of salt to the salmon, pretty lightly, just all over. We'll just add it to the bowl. Our rice is not done yet, but the timer's off, so it's been 18 minutes. We're just gonna turn off the heat, and then we're just gonna let it steam. Let it steam, cover, do not peek. You want that steam. It's gonna allow the rice to kind of continue to cook through and become nice and tender. We're just gonna lay the salmon on a foil-lined baking sheet. All that excess miso, grapefruit paste, that deliciousness, and we're just going to divide it between each fillet. We are gonna place the salmon underneath the boiler for five to seven minutes. It really depends on the thickness of your salmon, but once you see the top getting nicely caramelized and charred in certain spots, then you'll know it's ready. This dish would be delicious if you just want steamed rice that's unadorned, but I think the scallions, using the white and green parts, and a little bit of butter just make it so delicious, and I love buttered short-grain rice. Our rice is done steaming. I'm just adding one tablespoon of butter. You really don't need a lot of butter. This is just to kind of coat each grain, add a little bit of fat, and along with that, we're gonna add our scallions. This was four scallions. I like quite a bit of scallions, but you could do more, you could do less. We'll add a little bit of salt, some pepper. The heat from the rice is also gonna soften the scallions. Mm. That's like top comfort foods, like just a bowl of steamed rice. Ah, okay, see? You can see how it's really nice and browned all over. So our salmon is cooked. You can see how it's nicely kind of caramelized up at the top, that kani miso. All that has done its magic up top underneath the broiler, but with the toppings, I kind of thought of what are these kind of cooling, crunchy, spicy toppings that can go with it? So I have avocado, cucumbers, radishes. The cucumber and radishes is gonna be a nice kind of contrast, a kind of cooling, crunchy texture to the soft, buttery rice and the salty, sticky salmon. Super simple, comes together really quickly. Easy to make, for one, for your family, for many. It's been a while since I not only developed this recipe, but actually cooked it again, so. The smirk, the smile is actually, it tastes very good, but it's because I'm so happy that the grapefruit is so there and present. I love that citrus so much, it really, I don't know, it deserves to be a part of the recipe name. I'm just gonna go for that and say it's like, we'll leave it at sticky miso salmon, but you know, sticky miso grapefruit salmon is also, it deserves just as much credit as the miso here. The salmon is just nice and sticky and not too sweet, but just adds a nice balance with the miso. And to get this recipe, check the link below.